Several months ago I was out wandering about the garage in my bare feet -- never a good idea -- and picked up a splinter of something in my heel. One generally deals with splinters in one of two ways: pick it out, or let the body take care of it, either by absorbing it or pushing it out.
Being on the bottom of my heel, I couldn't get to it to pick it out, and since it's walked on daily there was no chance it could get pushed out. And after a couple months it became clear that it would never be absorbed.
I asked Mrs Elliott that if I were to give her an X-Acto knife and a bottle of Bactine would she be willing to dig the thing out. She looked faintly queasy and passed on the offer.
Clearly I was going to have to go to a professional. While I was seeing my primary care doc about this and that a couple weeks ago I mentioned it, and they took an X-ray. But there was nothing visible on the film. That ruled out metal. Wood was already ruled out as it would have been absorbed by the body. This left glass or maybe a splinter of plastic.
This morning, Dr. Askew, the same guy that fused my right ankle in 2009, numbed the bottom of my heel with Freon or something, jabbed me with some Lidocaine ("Here -- bite on this piece of leather."), and dug around with a scalpel. He found a whitish length of callus with maybe something white and tough within. No telling what it was. I looked at it and couldn't figure out what it was. Wasn't glass, anyway. Probably plastic.
He put in a couple stitches, and sent me on my way.
I have to walk on my tippy-toes on that foot for a week or so, and take antibiotics, but the problem should be gone.
All in all it seems like a stupid thing to have to see a doctor about but I reckon I ran out of ideas.
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